


Streusel

by inglouriously



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Baked goods and pining, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-23
Updated: 2020-08-14
Packaged: 2021-03-05 04:40:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25458691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inglouriously/pseuds/inglouriously
Summary: Jester hears a word she doesn't recognize, and it leads her down a rabbithole.
Relationships: Jester Lavorre/Caleb Widogast
Comments: 14
Kudos: 176





	1. Jester

It starts out innocently enough. Caleb mentions something called _struzel_ , or so Jester thinks it ought to be spelled the first time she hears it. She nearly asks what it is, but then the conversation shifts and she can’t quite find a moment to ask him, and then it falls out of her brain for a while. It doesn’t return until they’re in a bakery in Rosohna and she sees a word written on a placard. _Streusel_. It trips a wire in her brain, even with the correct spelling, and she buys the little cake almost without thinking. 

Just to try it. See what it tastes like…as if it might give her some kind of clue about Caleb. As if she can puzzle him out just by knowing what his favorite cake tastes like. It’s strange and crumbly, and Jester isn’t sure she’ll like it, but cake is cake, so she takes it home and tries it gamely. 

As it turns out, Zemnian-style baking and Nicodrani baking aren’t all that different; the soft, crumbly bits on the top of the cake burst with cinnamon and sugar, and something else. Butter, Jester thinks as she licks a bit of it off her thumb. The cake underneath is fluffy and moist, with a thick stripe of cinnamon filling between the layers.

It makes sense, she muses as she pops the last little bit of it in her mouth, wiping her hands on her dress. Caleb is kind of like that—a little intimidating, at first, a little strange. But once you get used to his routines and his foibles and his quirks, he’s often sweeter than expected. Sweet and sharp and fiery...Thoughtful. Always making sure she’s alright. Making sure she gets to see her mom, making sure she finds the best sweets. He listens to her, he believes in her…

 _Do you even realize how fucking stupid that sounds_ , Jester thinks to herself. Caleb is as nice to her as he is anyone else, and it’s dumb of her to think she’s any different to him than their other friends. _And after all, he’s probably still in love with Astrid_. Someone Jester’s never met but still manages to have strong feelings about. How could someone like Jester ever compare to someone strong and powerful and important to Caleb as Astrid is?

Suddenly the aftertaste of streusel tastes bitter, and Jester digs through the icebox for the milk, takes a long drink straight from the bottle to try and wash the taste out. 

“Traveler,” she murmurs. “Do you think it’s easier to just be alone? Because I hate being alone, but sometimes it seems...better. Smarter.”

The Traveler does not answer. Jester puts the milk away and leans over the kitchen sink, looking out the window over the sprawling garden outside, left to form her own conclusions.


	2. Caleb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Caleb sees more than he wishes he did, sometimes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did not intend for this to be anything but a ficlet and yet here we are

He notices. How could he not notice, when it feels like he’s hyper-aware of her every move most of the time? 

Caleb watches Jester skip out of that bakery with a streusel cake tucked into her pocket and tries in vain to keep his traitor heart from hammering in his chest. To stem the fluttering of hope against his ribs. He tries so hard not to wonder, to convince himself it’s a coincidence. 

_It has nothing to do with you,_ he reminds himself sternly, miserably. It just happens to be a Zemnian speciality that she chose out of dozens of sweeter, more brightly-colored options. It just happens to be his favorite sweet, which he’s certain he’s mentioned in passing at least once...

It’s nothing. It has to be nothing. 

He stands in the laboratory, staring at one of Nott’s distillery setups without really seeing it, watching an acrid-smelling green liquid drip slowly from one beaker into the next. He wonders vaguely if her lips now taste of cinnamon and sugar. He’s wondered this before, but now it sends a hot rush to the pit of his stomach. 

He wishes he had a god, for just a moment. Someone to ask for guidance. Instead, Caleb turns to the closest thing he has: the striped cat loafing contentedly on his desk. 

“What do you think, Frumpkin? A coincidence, _ja?_ ”

Frumpkin gives him a long, blank stare, unblinking, and says nothing.


	3. Caleb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reverie on a cupcake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all's comments and kudos are keeping me sane right now. Here's another little something I've been noodling over.

There is a cupcake in his pack. 

They all tease Jester for hoarding pastries, for offering moldy doughnuts to people and feeding them to her poor pet weasel, but Caleb is no better than her, he reflects as he brushes past the little bundle while hunting for a quill. It’s wrapped in a clean handkerchief, and he’d used a simple spell to keep it from getting smushed or dried out or rotten. He never takes it out.

He couldn’t say why, exactly, he kept it. It was a mad impulse. He’d intended to save it for later, but when he’d unwrapped it while he read before bed, he couldn’t bring himself to actually eat it. It was too pretty, too pristine. 

And, well....

He’s useless. 

He pulls it out now, carefully unwrapping the handkerchief around it and resting it on the writing desk in front of him. It’s pristine, white frosting and blue sprinkles and a single, perfect blueberry on top. Caleb wishes he could bring himself to do something with it, anything except stare at it and think of Jester.

There are times, late at night when he’s half-asleep, when the thought filters into his head that maybe he should do something about this. But the ability to entertain that disappears as sleep claims him, and he wakes up the next morning hit once more with the knowledge that he can’t. Can’t tell her about his feelings, can’t jeopardize her like that.

Jester deserves better, and Caleb? Caleb doesn’t deserve her at all. Who is he to dare to have any hope for something like love? Least of all from someone so thoroughly kind-hearted.

It’s just a cupcake. He could throw it out, he could toss it in the fireplace.

But he won’t.


	4. Jester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester spaces out, and lets something slip.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys!! Thank you for all the nice comments! Here's another little baby chapter for your troubles <3

He’s behind her, always.

Jester’s grown used to the whizz of Fireballs and Magic Missiles past her ears; she finds the muttering of spells comforting, has learned to keep an ear out for anything putting their squishy wizard in harm’s way so she knows when to heal…provided she remembers to prepare a healing spell or two, of course.

It’s still surprising to be suddenly buffed, to turn into a giant Jester or a big blue woolly mammoth, but she’s come to rejoice in that, too. He makes her feel stronger, he makes her feel like maybe she could do anything. He’s never talked down to her, not like Essek did. He’s never made her feel small or stupid or childish. He…

He listens to her. He spares the odd smile for her, he uses his pearl to give her Fortune’s Favor and each and every time Jester catches a whiff of campfire-smell on his fingers and it makes her stomach churn and her breath come out a little shakier.

Jester jumps in her seat as something warm and soft leaps into her lap, atop the half-forgotten book that was spread across her knees. Jester laughs, fingers going to the top of Frumpkin’s head to scratch between his ears. The cat settles into her lap, purring, a warm and contented little Fey creature that she’s adored from the first moment she set eyes on him.

Her heart is so full, all of a sudden. So full of warmth and threatening to overflow with feelings like a dam after a rainstorm. And she doesn’t even think about it, doesn’t consider the fact that Frumpkin isn’t a normal cat, as she bends forward to kiss between his ears and murmur:

“Give this to Caleb for me, Lumpy.”


	5. Caleb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Frumpkin snitches.

Caleb hardly notices his familiar padding back into the room; he’s buried in his work, transcribing a new spell they had found during a recent journey. The dancing lights bob around his head, a familiar and comforting light that meshes perfectly with the crackle of the fireplace behind him and the scratching of his quill on the parchment.

Frumpkin is normally pretty unobtrusive; when he’s out in the world, he generally keeps out of the way, except to seek out a warm lap to lie in. Which is why it’s such a surprise when he hops up on Caleb’s desk and sits his furry little butt right down on the empty stretch of parchment below where Caleb has been writing.

Caleb’s brow furrows, and he fixes the cat with a stern look. “You are being a nuisance,” he tells the cat.

Frumpkin stares back, and blinks, and conveys a message that Caleb wasn’t expecting. Not by a long shot, not ever. And if they didn’t have a telepathic link, if he wasn’t seeing the memory exactly the way Frumpkin had seen it, he wouldn’t believe it.

The quill falls from between Caleb’s soot-covered fingertips, leaving a splotch on his ink-blotter, and he snaps Frumpkin out of existence. His whole body feels at once lined with lead and lighter than his quill. 

He stares at the door, knowing that somewhere on the other side of it, somewhere in the Xhorhaus, Jester is sitting. And maybe, just maybe, she’s thinking about him.


	6. Caleb & Jester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A chat in the garden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Could it be? Did I write a chapter longer than 400 words?
> 
> Enjoy. ♡

He finds her in the tree. 

It takes him awhile, a bit of wandering between rooms, peering in and trying not to attract too much attention from the rest of the Nein. He checks the room she shares with Beau (mercifully empty), the Happy Room (which he still does not quite understand the purpose of, but which seems to involve bean-bag chairs), and the kitchen (which is occupied by Beau and a very large sandwich) before wandering out to the garden.

The whole way, of course, he’s trying to talk himself down. Trying to remind himself that even if it means anything—which it doesn’t—it doesn’t necessitate them talking about it. Even if Jester by some miracle holds affection for him, he needs to be responsible. He needs to protect her from the grievous harm that being close to him could precipitate. She doesn’t believe him, she never has, that he’s a bad person. That he’s dangerous and doesn’t deserve the whole lot of them, which means it’s up to him to just…skirt around it.

Which he is definitely doing, right now, as he pauses at the base of the great tree on the roof and peers up into the branches. He can see, high up enough that it should be impossible for someone of her stature to reach, a glimpse of frilly skirts and swinging bare feet and the lazy curling and uncurling of a blue tail. He can also hear animated chatter; Caleb smiles to himself. She must be telling the Traveler about her day.

He should turn around. She’s busy, and this is a terrible idea, and clearly this all means that it’s not supposed to happen. He’s turning on his heel when he hears the _thud_ of two feet landing on the ground behind him.

“Caleb?”

 _Scheisse._ He almost curses aloud, his head ducking a little as if he’s been caught, because he has. He should keep walking. He should go back into the house, pretend he hasn’t heard her, but he can’t. So he takes a deep breath, filling his lungs with the smell of earth and sweet herbs grown under Caduceus’ caring hand, and turns.

“Hello, Blueberry.”

Her face is upturned, looking up at him almost expectantly, and he imagines just for a moment that the freckles smattered across her cheeks are glowing, incandescent in the artificial sunlight strung through the branches of the tree. It would suit her if they did, he thinks. She's radiant in just about every other way, from the light of mischief in her eyes to the diamond dust glittering across her shoulders to the way she fills every room with laughter, and—

Gods help him, he's a fool. A complete and utter fool, and all for her. Does she have any clue that she has him wrapped around her little blue finger?

Jester's fingers bunch in the fabric of her skirt. Is she blushing? Caleb stands rooted to the spot, even though his instincts are warring with themselves: split between _run away before you do something rash_ , and _take her in your arms and don't you dare let her go_.

Her tail swishes near her feet.

"I guess Frumpkin passed along my message," she sighs, her gaze sliding off to the right to avoid...something. Seeing something in his eyes she doesn't want to see, is his best guess. Caleb's heart feels like it stops, for a moment, his throat dry as bone, and all he can do is nod, staring at her with pain and hope warring in his eyes.

" _Ja._ He did." He mulls over his words for a long moment, trying to think of an argument. A reason why it's a bad idea, why she should...take it back. But all he can really do is ask: "Why?"


	7. Jester

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A talk in the garden.

She’d remembered, split seconds after giving Frumpkin that kiss on his furry little brow, that he shares a telepathic link with Caleb. That he’s a Fey creature.

That he will most certainly tell Caleb, and Caleb will be free to form whatever conclusions he wants to from her message.

She’d wandered out to the garden not long afterward, barefoot and clutching her sketchbook, and climbed high into the tree’s branches. She wanted to try and write out her feelings, which turned into a one-sided chat with the Traveler while she tried to draw anything but Caleb’s handsome face and failed miserably. 

Jester had watched as the door that leads out into the garden opens, light spilling out onto the paving stones, and it was almost a relief to see Caleb’s auburn head from above—a relief not to have to wait for him to find her, anymore. She could hear him moving toward the base of the tree, and she finished what she was saying to the Traveler, before her voice dropped to a bare whisper.

“Wish me luck, Traveler.”

She’d dropped down out of the tree, landing behind Caleb with a hand steadying her on the ground before she rose back to her full height.

—

“Why?” He asks, and Jester chews her lip, gauging his reaction, trying to figure out how much he’s figured out. If he thinks she just has a crush on him, a passing fancy, or if he’s more observant than that. If he’s noticed all the little things, the extra hugs she can’t help but give him, the smiles. The streusel. 

She shrugs, her head rolling to the side, trying to play it off. Her smile is as present as ever, but it’s the same mask she’s worn since Molly’s death. The smile she hides behind when her real emotions are a little too difficult, a little too intense, and she doesn’t want anyone to worry about her. But there are cracks around the edges, cracks that Jester is pretty certain Caleb can see. Has always been able to see, once he knew where to look.

“I just…wanted to,” she begins. “And I sort of…forgot that Frumpkin could snitch on me.” That cat _definitely_ owes her one.

There’s a long moment of silence, where she tries to avoid looking at Caleb’s eyes, but she can’t stay away. His eyes, blue and piercing, draw her in, and Jester is nearly staggered by what she sees there. It’s…raw, and real, and this is possibly the most serious she’s ever seen Caleb. She can sense he’s about to say something, and she scrambles to keep talking before he can say something she doesn’t want to hear.

Her shoulders deflate.

“I’m sorry. I…I didn’t do it on purpose, Caleb. I never thought…it would feel like this. It didn’t sound this way in all the books.” Complicated. Raw. In her stories it was so straightforward, but falling in love with Caleb had been a winding, twisted path. Confusing and scary, but also way easier than it had any right to be, once that first pebble fell down the slope. The landslide that followed was so immense and easy, _easy_ to let herself fall.

“It’s okay. We don’t have to…you don’t have to say anything.”

Caleb….Caleb is floored. Caleb is helpless. Useless.

Caleb steps forward.


	8. Jester & Caleb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jester and Caleb have a show-and-tell.

He steps forward. He’s spellbound, puppeted only by the surge of awe and the return of those faint, fluttering wings of hope in his chest. Is she saying what his fool heart is hoping against all hope she’s saying?

He doesn’t deserve that. Any of this. Her. The Nein.

But he’s here. He’s been here, he hasn’t left despite saying that he would, that he should. That it would be better for all of them. Safer.

Caleb knows, deep in the charred ruin of his heart, that Jester deserves better. She deserves everything; the world, both moons. She is Catha, huge and shining and beautiful. Caleb….Caleb is Ruidus. He’s nothing, compared to her.

But…she shines on him. She graces him with her smile, with her words of encouragement. Jester has never shown him anything but kindness, and belief in him. His power and his ability to do good. _Be_ good.

She sees in him what he can’t see in himself. And maybe there’s a grain of truth to it. Maybe for her, Caleb _could_ be a good man.

He reaches out, almost in a trance, and takes her hands.

“Jester.” He interrupts her trailing, her doubt, with her own name, hushed and a little reverent. His mouth is dry, so dry, and he takes a moment to wet his lips. “What are you saying? Please, I beg of you…speak plainly.”

Jester, her heart pounding in her chest, her cheeks flushed, answers in a quiet squeak.

“Um—“

Her mouth works, for a moment, to find the right words, to shape around the right vowels and consonants to tell him how she feels. To say the words she’d denied for so long, the words she’s thought so many times when she looks at Caleb.

She comes up with nothing but shaking hands that take the sketchbook tucked under her arm, and flip open to the most recent pages. She turns it so he can see.

Caleb’s eyes, piercing and full of struggle, pore over the pages. Take in what she’s showing him: his own face, sketched from different angles, with care in every line. In one sketch, he’s got Frumpkin scarfed around his shoulders. In another, he’s got a pearl pressed to his forehead. Here they are, waltzing. Here, a rare smile, and a tiny heart drawn just off to the side.

His chest is tight as he looks over these sketches, and then he drags his eyes back up to Jester. She’s startled to see the blazing look in them, the way he stares at her as if his gaze could consume her in a gout of flame. Her heart hammers away, beating a steady rhythm against her ribcage, and she watches as her squishy wizard reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out something wrapped in a handkerchief.

Her heart caught in her throat, Jester realizes as he unwraps it what it is, and the sight of it is such a shock to her system.

“My cupcake,” she whispers. The blueberry cupcake she’d given him in Uthodern.

“ _Ja_ ,” Caleb whispers back. His heart is palpitating, his pulse a thunderous roar in his ears. “It was too perfect to eat, you see, and so—“

He’s still cradling it in his palms when Jester surges forward, up, up on her tiptoes, and slants her mouth over his. For a moment, he’s too shocked to do anything but stand there, and then his brain remembers where he is and he lets it fall to the ground so that he can wrap his arms around Jester and draw her close and kiss her back. He doesn’t need it any longer. It’s nothing compared to the armful of blue tiefling he’s landed with. 

He kisses her the way he’s imagined, guilty and furtive, hundreds of times. He kisses her even though he shouldn’t. And he is so, so fucked, because now that he’s started kissing Jester Lavorre he doesn’t ever want to stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again for all the kudos and bookmarks and kind comments! This will be the penultimate chapter; I also re-titled the chapters because the titles I was using before were a bit of an afterthought. Enjoy!!


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